Posted from phone. Last week the wagon added a missfire to go with the valve tap. I pulled a few plugs they looked good, checked timing, wires, and replaced my Borg Warner HEI module with an Accel one for more dwell (who knows) then recurved the distributor cleaned it etc. with the distributor out I noticed oil around the intake bolts, hmmm finger tight on nearly all of them. Re torqued them then seafoamed it. Next drove it down the highway for 30m to a friends, ran fine. Overall still felt "chuggy" under 2k. Pulled #5 and #7 plugs tonight on a haunch coolant fowled. :-( so is it head, head gasket, intake leaked coolant into runners... I plan to redo the heads while they are off for the cam,lifter, intake, carb swap.

Posted from phone. Last week the wagon added a missfire to go with the valve tap. I pulled a few plugs they looked good, checked timing, wires, and replaced my Borg Warner HEI module with an Accel one for more dwell (who knows) then recurved the distributor cleaned it etc. with the distributor out I noticed oil around the intake bolts, hmmm finger tight on nearly all of them. Re torqued them then seafoamed it. Next drove it down the highway for 30m to a friends, ran fine. Overall still felt "chuggy" under 2k. Pulled #5 and #7 plugs tonight on a haunch coolant fowled. :-( so is it head, head gasket, intake leaked coolant into runners... I plan to redo the heads while they are off for the cam,lifter, intake, carb swap.

I'm glad you didn't break a rod

Now would be the time to machine the guides for the fancy seals that accommodate a high lift cam.

Well its not coolant, they are just ash fouled. The 2 steps hotter heat range plugs the PO had installed were just cooking off the oil that I presume is getting past the guides/seals on that cylinder or the intake manifold having literally finger tight or less bolts probably sucked its share of oil down the runners. Either way the whole thing is coming apart soon. This engine really just runs rough and crappy in general but oil pressure is solid 50 on highway and 20+ warm idle. Figure ill do a midplate and see what else is up while I have it apart.